"Back in the day" our houses were wired with Zinsco thermal trip circuit breakers that could be held closed electrically. Today's modern breakers cannot be over-ridden and will trip internally disengaging from the flip handle.
A buddy had a 15,750V 375ma signal transformer from a navy ship marconi telegraph transmitter that had a 110VAC 60hz primary rating. In an oil filled can with 4" tall ceramic insulators on it.
We would pull the face off of the electric box, install a 20A breaker to an empty slot and jumper to the transformer with a piece of 12-3 romex. Then I would hold the breaker closed and my pal would drag a long Xcelite nut driver across the terminals and get an arc going. As he drug the shaft of the nut driver across, the arc would sustain between the terminals. Looked like Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory.
That thing scared me. One afternoon while arcing it his dad walked out the back door to see what was going on. The old CRT TV picture was shrinking when we lit the arc. I also noticed the spinning KW meter on the panel was so overloaded that it just sat still vibrating. And noticing movement our of peripheral vision, I looked up and thought the overhead wires were moving. The drop to the house from the pole was overhead 3 wires, L! L2 & neutral. He initiated another arc and we both looked up, the wires were in a vertical orientation and the top and bottom wires swung out to opposing sides from the EMF.
Amazing we survived childhood, we were about 16 at the time. Had just gotten driver licenses and used to frequent a government surplus facility that had lots of great Viet Nam leftovers.
